Thomasburg is a small hamlet in the Municipality of Tweed in eastern Ontario. Behind my home here is a fallow field, swamp, cedar bush, old apple orchard and woods. Almost every day I take the same walk through this territory to see who's been by, and try to figure out what they've been up to.

Monday, September 12, 2005

Hemaris thysbe

Clearwing moths have visited the garden a number of times since I posted Welcome Clearwing!. (Buddleia, or butterfly bush,is an excellent draw!) And I am now convinced, based on the subsequent sightings, the comments from tony g and troutgrrrl, and a respondent on the Eastern Ontario Nature List, that my visitors are indeed Hemaris thysbe. For lots of moths, including this one, check out The Moths of Canada. Here is their thysbe picture. See troutgrrrl's thysbe, at Science and Sarcasm, here.

It was a cool morning and I caught this moth at rest on a tiger lily.

Clearly a thysbe, and while a different individual than the one in my earlier post, clearly the same species.

A couple more views:

Then warmed up, or sick of being photographed, the clearwing moved on to feed.

2 comments:

Wow! Those are some amazing photos! How'd you capture such great images? Did this critter show up during daylight hours? Your pictures look so bright and colorful, it's hard to imagine you took them at dusk. I still have to figure out my 'mystery moth.' I think I should post a picture or two and enlist your and Tony's help...

Thanks! I'm liking my Pentax Optio 30--a small step above a point-and-shoot digital camera, but with pretty good macro capability. Hemaris thysbe is a daytime flyer--I took the photos late morning or early afternoon. And it helped that this time the moth was sitting still for long enough to be photographed, either because it was cold, or a little worn out. You can see from the tattered wings that this critter is past its prime.

I'm looking forward to seeing your mystery moth--though not sure how much help I'll be. I'm learning moths one at a time, I'm up to about 5--I think there are considerably more!